What are NUTS?

NUTS is an acronym that stands for "Nomenclature of territorial units for statistical purposes", a hierarchical system that divides the territory into regions.

This nomenclature was devised by Eurostat, in the early 1970s, aiming at harmonizing the statistics of the various countries in terms of collection, compilation and dissemination of regional statistics.

The nomenclature is subdivided into 3 levels (NUTS I, NUTS II, NUTS III), defined according to population, administrative and geographical criteria.

In 2015, a new regional division came into force in Portugal – NUTS 2013. Comparing to the previous version – NUTS 2002 – it translates into significant changes in the number and municipal composition of NUTS III, from 30 to 25 territorial units, now designated as “administrative units”. These units correspond to the "Inter-municipal Entities", "Autonomous region of Azores" and "Autonomous region of Madeira". As to NUTS I and NUTS II, this new 2013 version did not entailany changes, with only the "Lisbon" designation in NUTS II becoming "Lisbon Metropolitan Area."

Thus, the 308 municipalities in Portugal are now grouped into 25 NUTS III, 7 NUTS II and 3 NUTS I.

PORDATA publishes data according to the 2013 version of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistical Purposes (NUTS). A description of the changes in versions 2002 and 2013 of NUTS III is available here.